2010

The insulated belay jacket principle is now well established for alpine climbing above the snow line. I no longer carry a shell jacket unless rain is likely. If precipitation is going to fall as snow, then I wear an insulated, windproof, highly breathable mid layer that will keep me warm when moving, and carry...

It’s always difficult to swallow a Himalayan expedition failure, even more so if you’ve voluntarily retreated off a route when others have gone on to summit. Add to the failure the months of effort that have gone into just getting to the Himalayas – the endless grant applications for funding, the bureaucratic wrangling over...

At 4.35am last Saturday the city I’ve called home for the past thirty years was hurtled into wakefulness by a 7.4 earthquake. On the Richter scale, this is the same strength as the earthquake that flattened Haiti, just weeks ago. New Zealand is used to earthquakes, as it sits on a mesh of fault...

The West Face of Vasuki Parbat( photo by Mick Fowler) India is mad! Not bedlam mad, or bloodthirsty mad, or nuclear holocaust mad?but mad in a riotous, raucous, blindingly colourful way that distinguishes it from any other nation on earth. Nowhere else do you find such contrast, such anomaly between religion, ethnicity, lifestyle or...

March 2009: emails bounce back and forth across the climbing world, each with a ricochet of questions: Did you hear the Taliban have invaded the Swat Valley? Are you still going to Pakistan? What do you think? Will we be able to get into the country? Out of the country? Are the media blowing...

It?s a typical late summer?s afternoon in the hills above Christchurch ( that?s the South Island of New Zealand) ? the sky is blue, a brisk nor? easterly whisks in off the sea, the waves and distant mountains sparkle. I?m doing my typical later summer afternoon thing- cragging with friends at one of the...